Orange.
It’s the bike that many riders have been expecting. The Orange Five is dead, long live the Orange Five. It’s gone 27.5in. It’s a move that will please some riders who’ve been holding off buying a Five – and it’ll horrify more traditional Orange purists.

How about that apple green colour?

New, lighter shock mounts

New graphics help distract from the different wheel size

The bike gains many of the overall frame improvements first debuted on the Five 29. There’s a longer shock mount, which allows the force to be spread over more of the down tube. This, in turn, allows for a lighter down tube. There’s a new, forged shock link on the swing arm and 142mm dropouts with a thru-axle. Travel remains at 140mm. The apple green bike here will be around £3,000 when it comes out in July.

The Five gets the rounder swingarm with oval cable exit points

The head tube is shorter now to account for an external headset

142mm dropouts - hooray for that!

Prices:

Five S, £2499.99

Five Pro, £2999.99 (The bike above is a Pro with upgraded fork (to a 34 Factory Float from a 32 Performance Float) and shock

Five SE, £4499.99

Frame only:£1499.99

The new Five will be out in July.

The bike is proudly 27.5in, but the tyres still reckon it's called 650B. People seem to be settling on 27.5in

Over in the corner was another revamped Orange. The Orange Crush now features 27.5in wheels and a similar cockpit feel to the new Five to help riders who have one of each feel more at home. The Crush also gains an E-type bolt-on front mech and a 49mm untapered headtube.

Orange also has a new marketing guy who seems rather familiar. Oh yes, it’s Sim Mainey who, for eight years has been designing Singletrack.

Why why why? I just can’t see the point of 27.5 are there really any benefit’s over 26? I get 29 but this mid size just seems an excuse for people to be hoodwinked into buying a new model in some belief it will be much better.

I am an avid orange fan and have a five but this just seems a marketing ploy unless someone can convince me, not knocking orange as all manufacturer’s are at it

Quote: “Why why why? I just can’t see the point of 27.5 are there really any benefit’s over 26? I get 29 but this mid size just seems an excuse for people to be hoodwinked into buying a new model in some belief it will be much better.”

Completely agree, 650B is too close to 26″, there isn’t room in the market for three wheel sizes; 26 and 29 are different enough to be worthwhile alongside each other in the shed, I’ll be sticking with those.

More interesting will be where Orange choose to go in 12 months time with maintaining three wheel sizes.

I’ve never ridden 27.5″ or 29″ (well, other than cyclocross…) so I’ll remain open-minded about them until I do. But I also suspect the perceived abandoning of 26″ is marketing-based, and of course it’s a very clever move – to ‘upgrade’ you pretty much have to buy new EVERYTHING!

It’ll be interesting to see if there’s a move back to 26″ in a few years time, when all the early 27.5″ adopters are itching to upgrade again. Oh, and the line I hear from UK bike shops, that 26″ is dead and has been in the US for years, is not quite right I think. I was in California last month, visited as many bike shops as I could, and they were full of 26″ full-sus and 29″ hardtails. Nowhere had 27.5″ and all the guys I spoke to were dismissive of it as a concept.

It’s not just wheel size is it though? I’m riding my 5 year old bike and hoping that the next bit to break will be economical to replace, rather than be an excuse for a major upgrade.

Gears, should I stick with 9 or make the leap to 10?
Forks, suddenly 32mm stantions look very spindly.
Frame, might as well go to a bigger headtube if the fork legs are so much bigger..
Wheels, QR doesn’t cut it anymore

Its industry led. Its pretty clever really. Built in future incomparability will fuel purchases in a few years.
Its already difficult to buy a straight 1 1/8″ steerer fork..all are now tapered. So your old forks wear out, and you can’t get anything but tapered, so your forced to upgrade.
Same for 650b, start producing everything now in 650b, in four to five years when your 26″ stuff / frame etc. is ready for a change you have no choice but to change lots of it or even the whole frame. Clever.

my fork + frame aren’t compatible with that old set of QR wheels I was keeping for a rainy day.. but the new stuff is better… those old wheels probably don’t have disc compatible hubs. Damn those “marketing” people making our bikes better…